


An Uneventful Evening

by PrivateBi



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Autistic!Damien, Fluff, I forgot to add that last tag earlier bc I just kinda' take it as a given now, Multi, TPP Secret Santa, bouquet bein' calm and livin' their lives long after the Drama at Fort Terminus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 07:21:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17137466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrivateBi/pseuds/PrivateBi
Summary: Rilla spends some time chilling with her boys after a long day of working in the garden





	An Uneventful Evening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karin/gifts).



> When I found out I was going to be giving a Secret Santa gift to you, I had a moment like "how do I write something for someone so COOL???" but I did my best and here's the end result!

Rilla wrapped her hand firmly around the leafy turmeric stem, planting her other hand in the soft, rich soil to brace herself as she deftly pulled the root up and out. Dirt spattered her apron, but she payed it no mind. She had already tossed the root onto the pile that was growing in the basket beside her, and moved on to the next plant. She hummed to herself as she methodically worked through her harvest, time passing unnoticed as she allowed herself to be wrapped up in the thoughtless, repetitive motions of her hands. It came as a surprise when she reached for another plant, and instead found herself grasping empty air. Without noticing, she had pulled up the last root. Belatedly, she noticed that twilight had fallen, stars beginning to twinkle merrily in the sky above her. 

Her joints cracked as she stood, protesting after too long spent kneeling on the ground. She bent down to brush the dirt off her knees, and succeeded only in transferring streaks of the stuff from her palms to her legs. She let out a huff, as if she could guilt the soil and sweat coating her skin into packing up and leaving, just by expressing enough disappointment. When this, as hypothesized, didn’t work, she walked around to the side of the hut to wash up in the customary way. 

It was one of Marc’s more mundane ideas, running water, but also one of Rilla’s favorites, if only so she didn’t have to trudge all the way down to the river to bathe at the end of a long day. She dropped her filthy apron outside the shower stall, along with the rest of her clothes, fearing no onlookers here outside the citadel. The wooden door slammed behind her as she stepped in and turned on the water. 

She unwound the strip of cloth from around the haphazard bun atop her head, and placed it on the shelf among various small containers. There was her hair oil in a glass vial, between Arum’s tin of scale scrub and Damien’s bottle of scar balm. Such a small thing, hardly worth noticing, but Rilla saw in it proof of the life the three of them had built together, the home they shared. Methodically, she lathered her hair from root to tip, allowing the shampoo’s gentle lavender scent to relax her, and to remind her of Damien. For as long as she’d known him, he’d been fond of lavender for its oft-needed calming effects. More recently, he’d taken to using it as a motif in his poetry, when he found himself writing too often of violets. 

Once every last bit of dirt had been scrubbed away, Rilla took a worn-out towel off one of the three hooks on the back of the door, dried off, and wrapped it around herself. She had just stepped out into the soft carpet of grass when she noticed something had been hung over the shower stall’s outer door knob. Night had fallen in earnest by that point, and she couldn’t quite tell what it was until she picked it up and felt the cool fabric slip over her fingers. It was an old dress of Arum’s, torn and repaired a dozen times over, colors faded from repeated washings. Rilla had long since laid claim to it, re-purposing it as a nightgown. On nights when Arum was in The Swamp of Titan’s Bloom, caring for the Keep, wearing it made her feel as if he wasn’t so far away. Tonight proved he’d accepted the theft; he must have heard the water come on and set the nightgown out for her. 

She slipped the dress on, and returned the towel to its hook. After gathering up her dirty clothes and tossing them into one of the bins by the laundry line, she picked up the basket of turmeric and took it inside. 

She was greeted by warm, homey candlelight, which cast the faces of her two loved ones in a flickering, golden glow. Arum was working, with great concentration, on creating a tiny braid at Damien’s temple, presumably to keep his slightly-too-long hair out of his face. He’d been brushing it out of his eyes in annoyance for some time now as it grew out; Arum must have grown tired of it and taken matters into his own hands. Or, at least, that’s the excuse he’d probably use to explain why he was softly carding his hands through his partner’s dark hair. If asked why he had his tail curled possessively around the man sitting at his feet, it’s likely that his only excuse would have been a flustered, rattling hiss. 

Damien, for his part, was holding a well-worn book of poetry, from which his attention was diverted by the click of the latch as Rilla closed the door behind her. 

“Rilla, my love, you’ve returned! You are a vision, as ever, and more than that, a most welcome sight. I must speak my heart, and so I admit I was, perhaps, becoming somewhat worried about the late hour and the darkening night when you had not yet made your reappearance. Gazing upon your face brings peace again to my heart, as it always does and forever shall.” 

Rilla shook her head fondly, as she set her basket by the door. “You do know I was only in the garden outside, right? I could have just shouted through the window for you if I’d needed anything.” 

“Right, yes, I suppose that’s true. Er…” he trailed off, clearly racking his brain for the right phrase to save himself from embarrassment. 

To redirect his thoughts, Rilla crossed the room to bend down and kiss his cheek. “I’m happy to see you too, Damien.” He tilted his face up to her, only to have it pushed lightly back into place by one of Arums free hands. 

“Be still a little longer, I’m not done yet.” Only then did Arum look up, pausing his work for a moment. “Hello, Amaryllis. I take it it became too dark for you to continue in the garden? You must let me bring over some of my lantern plants from the keep, to keep your weak human eyes from becoming too much of an detriment to your craft.” 

It was typical of Arum to wrap up an offered gift in an insult, even though he knew she didn’t buy his misanthropic facade for a second. Rilla responded in kind “I’ll have you know that I finished my harvest today, in spite of the darkness.” She stuck out her tongue at him with a fondness that only pretended to be petulance. 

Damien, however, didn’t seem to grasp the game the other two were playing, and was looking back and forth between them, clearly searching their faces for the reason behind their apparent animosity. Rilla could see the question about to form on his lips, when Arum - with seeming clairvoyance- answered it for him.

“Stop worrying, honeysuckle, we’re only being facetious. Now for the last time, stop squirming, unless you want a haircut. My claws make this a more delicate procedure than one would think.” He put a hand on Damien’s shoulder and squeezed, both to keep him still and as a quiet way of reassuring him that he wasn’t upset. 

This seemed to have the desired effect; Damien quieted down and picked up his book once more, muttering the words to himself as he read. He probably thought he was being quiet, but each word rang out clearly and loudly, in perfect rhythm; a dramatic reading just for the three of them.

Rilla moved around to the side of the sofa, leaning on the arm of it to look over Arum’s shoulder. He put a hand over one of hers where it rested against the upholstery. She stood quietly for a moment, watching his clever fingers as they continued to plait Damien’s hair down to the very tip, then wrap it securely with a thin leather band. 

“You’re good at that,” she remarked. 

Arum’s frill ruffled out slightly, betraying the pride he took at the compliment. “I can do yours next, if you like. If nothing else, it’ll discourage your hair from finding its way into my face tonight, for a change.” 

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer,” said Rilla, not firing back about the comment she knew she couldn't dispute. 

Damien moved aside, to allow Rilla to make herself comfortable on the floor in front of Arum, leaning back against his legs. His scales caught here and there on the loose fabric of her nightshirt. He ran the backs of his claws through her wet tangles, undoing any knots he came across, taking care not to slice through even a single strand of hair. Then he set about the actual process of braiding, one hand holding each section as he wove them into a tight plait. Never once did he pull too hard, or snag his claws on a knot; he was gentle, treating Rilla as carefully as he would a flower. Arum had never been one for romantic words or grand gestures, but small, tender actions like this communicated his devotion just as surely. There was a surprising sweetness underneath his prickly exterior, and Rilla felt privileged to be one of its select few recipients. 

Damien, meanwhile, ignored the book in his lap in favor of taking Rilla’s hand in both of his own. He focused on it with the same intensity he gave to all else, running his cool, calloused fingers over the lines on her palm as if he would memorize them. With both of his thumbs, he pressed down into the center of her hand and down toward her wrist, lovingly soothing away the soreness that had grown there as she’d tended the garden. He’d anticipated it without her mentioning a thing; reading her with an unexpected clarity. He repeated the motion, and Rilla sighed with contentment. 

It was nice to be the center of attention for a while, to be reminded that Arum and Damien were as happy to care for her as she was to care for them. They stayed like that until Arum had braided down to the end of Rilla’s long hair, and after.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact: the jumping-off point in this fic was that bit talking about all their soap on the shelf, and how that means their space is a shared one. This was inspired by me, tripping over a bottle of shampoo my sister had left in the floor of the shower, and nearly eating tile jdkfhskdj
> 
> I'm on tumblr @ginnie-darling, and I'm always happy to chat about The Penumbra!


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